I know immigration is a complicated issue.
It is about history and politics and economics.
It involves individuals and families desperately looking for a brighter future.
It involves coyotes and drug lords who take advantage of the most desperate and the most vulnerable. It involves change and our country looking different tomorrow than it did yesterday. And, I also know our political leadership is not serious about working towards a viable solution. Posturing and politics has replaced leadership and compromise.

And, the way we treat the other is not new.
As a country we have always struggled with those we name as the outsider.
The Irish.
The Italians.
The Jews.
The Native Americans.
The Asians.
Today it is Latinos and Muslims.
We continue to fall short of the ideals we say make our country unique.

Tomorrow, rallies in support of immigrants and against the forced separation of parents from children are planned for in many places across our country. Last night, in my community, neighbors gathered to remember and to remind each other of our best values and who, as a country, we might one day be. I was asked to speak. This is what I said.

Tonight is about the detention of immigrants.And children who are separated from their parents.And, the impact of that.And, the cost of that.And, the morality of that.We are here to say out loud separating children from parents is wrong.And harmful.And not who we are, as a country, or who want to be.And, we are here to ask the question of who is included when we use the word “our.” As in our children.

As we gather and light our candles.And do our best to figure out what now and what next.Let me remind you of our history because none of what we struggle with today happens in a vacuum. I am not an expert of Central American history by any means, but for more than 20 years I have helped to build homes and schools in Nicaragua. I have worshiped in the Chapel where Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated. I have stood in a dirt front yard and listened as Rafina Amaya, the sole survivor of the El Mozote massacre spoke to us about what had happened to her family and community. Let me remind you of our history. In 1981, Salvadoran troops who were trained at the School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Georgia were flown back to El Salvador and then transported to El Mozote where they rounded up and killed everyone in the village – men, women and children – as a deterrent to the rebels who were fighting the Salvadoran government. And, let me remind you that it was a coup backed by the CIA which overthrew the democratically elected President of Guatemala and was the death blow to democratically elected leadership in Guatemala. And it was President Eisenhower who said of the Somozas, the dictators who controlled Nicaragua for more than 50 years, “He is a son of a bitch, but at least he is our son of a bitch.” That history of our involvement in these Central American countries has unfolded in many ways over many years. Those countries continue to struggle to overcome their broken and heartbreaking history and a crushing poverty and level of violence which you and I cannot imagine.

Those individuals who come to our borders seeking both asylum and hopeAre not aliens.They are not an infestation.They are not criminals.They are people running for their lives.I know it is true, because it is what so many of our immigrant neighbors live with and tell us. But, even listening to their stories, I cannot imagine what they must feel. Choosing to risk never seeing their children again for the desperate gamble to keep their children safe and to give them a future.

As we return to our homes tonight and get up tomorrow what I know or think I know is this.It is good for us to be here, but this is not nearly enough.Each of us and all of us have to figure out the next step and then the next step after that.And, if change is going to come it is going to come from the bottom up.From you and me standing up and speaking up and stepping forward.If we want that different tomorrow to be we have to summon the necessary courage and strength and endurance needed to pull it into some distant today.

Yesterday, when I was struggling to get my bearings I saw this post on social media. From Representative and civil right activist John Lewis who knows more about this than you and I will ever know. If he can say it and do it then maybe you and I can as well.“Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year.It is the struggle of a lifetime.Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get into good, necessary trouble.”

And, this side note…
Tomorrow I once again travel to a small community in Appalachia with a group of high school and college students and four other adults to spend a week repairing homes. My hope and prayer is this: May we learn with and from each other.

I grew up being taught and learning to be good.A good boy.A good son.A good brother.A good student.A good person.Which, among other things, meant…I did as I was told and did what was expected of me.I was respectful of others.I did my best.I was polite.I followed the rules.I didn’t make waves.

And, I grew up being taught and learning to be a good Christian which meant…Showing up to church each week.Sitting with my parents and my brothers in “our” pew.Going to Sunday School and youth groups.Learning about the Bible.Putting my offering in the offering plate.Being a good Christian was fundamentally about where I was and who I was with for a couple hours on a Sunday morning.Being good, whether at church or in school or out with my friends on a Friday or on a date on Saturday night was primarily about being nice and and doing my part and not getting into trouble or causing trouble. Being good was and is a complement about who I was and who I am. Does any of this sound familiar?

But, here’s the thing….The good I was taught to beThe polite and the respectful and the not making wavesDoesn’t always jive with the Bible which you and I claim to take seriously.Or with who Jesus was and with what Jesus taught which we claim as the example and the foundation for how we are to live. Consider or reconsider the scripture reading for this morning. Jesus sends out the disciples to cure disease and to cast out demons. Good things, right? But to understand these verses we need to read them through their eyes and not our own. In reality, what Jesus commands the disciples to do was disruptive behavior when the cultural norm was you were not even to associate with or to include those types of people in who you were and what you did. The disciples were to raise the dead. Cleanse lepers. And in an act of repudiation and defiance shake the dust of their feet from the homes and communities which did not welcome who they were or what they were doing. Rather than being nice, Jesus tells them “to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.”

Am I misreading these verses about how disruptive this behavior and these actions were?Before you answer, consider the next several verses.The ones following on the heels of Jesus saying “be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.” Again, Jesus speaking….Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me…Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his children, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name.(Matthew 10: 17-18 and 21-22a)Doesn’t sound to me like being nice or being good.All because they healed the sick and cleansed the lepers and cast out demons and proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God.

In his Commencement Speech to the graduates of Bates College in Maine in May, 2016, John Lewis, United States Congressman and Civil Rights leader and activist and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Honor, said this:“It was Dr. King who inspired me to stand up, to speak up and speak out.And I got in the way.I got in trouble.Good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Growing up, whether as a person or as a Christian, my lexicon never included or permitted the word good and the word trouble to be next to each other in a single sentence. But given the state of our country and our world…The misogyny.The abusive and demeaning and dehumanizing rhetoric and behavior.The predisposition to violence as a means to resolve problems.The widening gap between those who have far more than they need and those who struggle for their daily bread.The desperation of those who are uprooted and who flee from their homes and their communities.Those alienation and segregation of those who are demonized because of the color of their skin, the country of their origin or the religion they practice.

Maybe what I learned needs to change.Maybe I need to unlearn what I have spent a lifetime being taught.All of which leads me to this question.When was the last time you got into trouble because of what you believe?Or, because of the values of your faith?Or, because you stood up and spoke up and got in the way?This may sound like a rhetorical question for you, but it is, in all seriousness, a question I have been wrestling with. Me who has spent a lifetime practicing being good and who works hard at keeping people happy.

We are good at being good.We have mastered that lesson.But, that is not what we are to be about. Not who we are called to be.We are called to something more.We are called to see the world like God sees the world.We are called to work towards the world envisioned in the words “Thy Kingdom come.”We are still called to heal the sick and to cast out demons.We are called to stand against Death in whatever form Death takes.We are called to shake the dust off our feet as repudiation against all that and all those who demean and defile and exclude and demonize others.We are called to raise the dead and to practice resurrection.All of that is disruptive behavior.Rhetorical no longer…When was the last time you got into trouble because of your faith?

One of my favorite quotes (I don’t know where it is from) is this.If they get you asking the wrong questions they don’t have to worry about the answers.I don’t have many answers…yet.But, I think I am beginning to ask the right questions.

This week I am thinking about being good.And, all the ways I was taught to be good.A good child.A good brother.A good student.A good person.A good Christian.And what it meant to be good.Respectful.Considerate.Hard working.Doing my best.All important attributes. Ones which, by and large, I still value.

But, alongside all I was taught is this reflection by John Lewis.United States Representative.Civil Rights Leader and Activist.Recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.As a part of the speech he gave to the graduating class at Bates College in the spring of 2016
he said this:“It was Dr. King who inspired me to stand up, to speak up and speak out.
And I got in the way.
I got in trouble.
Good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Good trouble.Two words, which given all I have been taught about being good, don’t belong next to each other in the same sentence. And, yet…Given the state of our nation and world and what is at stake I think I have some unlearning/relearning to do.